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Page 38
Bryce turned eagerly to the faded scrap of newspaper.
BANK MANAGER'S DEFALCATION.
At the Central Criminal Court yesterday, John Brake,
thirty-three, formerly manager of the Upper Tooting
branch of the London & Home Counties Bank, Ltd.,
pleaded guilty to embezzling certain sums, the
property of his employers.
Mr. Walkinshaw, Q.C., addressing the court on behalf
of the prisoner, said that while it was impossible
for his client to offer any defence, there were
circumstances in the case which, if it had been worth
while to put them in evidence, would have shown that
the prisoner was a wronged and deceived man. To use
a Scriptural phrase, Brake had been wounded in the
house of his friend. The man who was really guilty
in this affair had cleverly escaped all consequences,
nor would it be of the least use to enter into any
details respecting him. Not one penny of the money
in question had been used by the prisoner for his own
purposes. It was doubtless a wrong and improper thing
that his client had done, and he had pleaded guilty and
would submit to the consequences. But if everything in
connection with the case could have been told, if it
would have served any useful purpose to tell it, it
would have been seen that what the prisoner really was
guilty of was a foolish and serious error of judgment.
He himself, concluded the learned counsel, would go so
far as to say that, knowing what he did, knowing what
had been told him by his client in strict confidence,
the prisoner, though technically guilty, was morally
innocent.
His Lordship, merely remarking that no excuse of any
sort could be offered in a case of this sort, sentenced
the prisoner to ten years' penal servitude.
Bryce read this over twice before handing back the book.
"Very strange and mysterious, Mr. Gilwaters," he remarked.
"You say that you saw Brake after the case was over. Did you
learn anything?"
"Nothing whatever!" answered the old clergyman. "I got
permission to see him before he was taken away. He did not
seem particularly pleased or disposed to see me. I begged him
to tell me what the real truth was. He was, I think, somewhat
dazed by the sentence--but he was also sullen and morose. I
asked him where his wife and two children--one, a mere infant
--were. For I had already been to his private address and had
found that Mrs. Brake had sold all the furniture and
disappeared--completely. No one--thereabouts, at any rate
--knew where she was, or would tell me anything. On my asking
this, he refused to answer. I pressed him--he said finally
that he was only speaking the truth when he replied that he
did not know where his wife was. I said I must find her. He
forbade me to make any attempt. Then I begged him to tell me
if she was with friends. I remember very well what he
replied.--'I'm not going to say one word more to any man
living, Mr. Gilwaters,' he answered determinedly. 'I shall be
dead to the world--only because I've been a trusting fool!
--for ten years or thereabouts, but, when I come back to it,
I'll let the world see what revenge means! Go away!' he
concluded. 'I won't say one word more.' And--I left him."
"And--you made no more inquiries?--about the wife?" asked
Bryce.
"I did what I could," replied Mr. Gilwaters. "I made some
inquiry in the neighbourhood in which they had lived. All I
could discover was that Mrs. Brake had disappeared under
extraordinarily mysterious circumstances. There was no trace
whatever of her. And I speedily found that things were being
said--the usual cruel suspicions, you know."
"Such as--what?" asked Bryce.
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